Sunday, August 31, 2008

Apocalypse Manila sharing equal 20 1/2 points with Selangor eclipsed the latter to emerge Champion through a tie-break. The sole foreign team truly deserved the title making a strong comeback in Day 2 winning all the games then, including the final game against Selangor. Selangor took the Second place and Best State Medal as well

In the Junior Category Selangor Generasi 8 took a commanding lead throughout the tournament and wrestled the Championship title and Best State Medal award.

After a hectic two weeks of chess the Malaysian Chess Festival has now drawn to its close. Wishing you Malaysians Selamat Hari Merdeka and Selamat Berpuasa to all Muslims, and safe journey home

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Pelikan is at the top of the table in the Open Category with 13 points after Round 4. ASTRO Malaysia is in second spot losing to the leader 1 1/2 - 2 1/2 but can always make a comeback tomorrow. The photo on the left showed Pelikan and Apocalypse Manila in Round 3, the result in favour of the Malaysian team at 3 -1. Likewise the leading State team Selangor collected 12 points so far, but the position remains fluid with other teams jostling close by. Competition is stiff with every point and strategy matters from now on

Selangor Generasi 8 representing Selangor is in the lead in the Juniors' Category with 14 1/2 points, or 1 1/2 points ahead of the team whom they will meet next.

(The University of Malaya GACC student volunteers were on hand to help in the smooth running of the Malaysian Chess Festival 2008 events)

The 28th Astro Merdeka Standard Team Chess Championship 2008 garners 78 teams of which 36 are participating in the Open Category and 32 in the Junior Category.

In view of the Ramadhan month which falls on 1st Sept 2008 and smaller number of teams the players agreed to reduce the number of rounds to 7 to be played over 2 days - 30th Aug to 31st Aug 2008. Time control is revised to 1 hour to the finish. 4 rounds will be played today while another 3 rounds will be played tomorrow followed by Closing and Prize Giving Ceremony.

Play has just begun this morning at about 0930hr. This will be the final series of this year's Malaysian Chess Festival 2008 and will be the last chess tournament to be held at the Wilayah Complex.

Open Category

The Senior category is led by "Pelikan". This category also attracts one foreign entry from the Philippines the "Apocalypse Manila". The Filipino team was in 5th position in the recent Team Rapid event

Junior Team Category

32 Teams are in this Category with Selangor State Team seeded at the top.

Friday, August 29, 2008

GM Yasser Seirawan with his famous d4 opening took on 3o players in a simul match last night. Dato' Tan Chin Nam and fellow MCF officials also took the opportunity to challenge the Grandmaster at his own game. After a few quick losses amongst the players Faizal Andin secured a draw and soon after a win by Lee Mun Keong. This was followed by two more draws through Mohd Irman and Justin Ong . From then on there were strings of losses on the participants.

The game with Fariz Shafruddin however crossed over the midnight. The chess clock was set at 5 minutes each so as not to drag on any longer in a knight vs bishop end game. A wrong knight turn was duly punished by Fariz's passed pawns and he had to concede another loss.

All in all GM Yasser won 25 games, 2 losses and 3 draws played over 4 1/2 hours.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Malaysian Chess Federation is playing host to the above Tournament held at Hotel Cititel Express, Kuala Lumpur. The playing format is a double round-robin with time control of 2 hours in 40 moves + 60 minutes thereafter to the finish. Malaysia's Mas Hafizulhelmi is nominated to play in this 6-player Tournament alongside GM Ziaur Rahman, GM Iuldachev Saidali , GM Sermek Drazen, FM Myo Zaw Min and WIM Zhang Xiaowen

Round 1 has started on 26th August 2008 and the subsequent rounds will be played to end on or about 4th September 2008. The Tournament is timed to coincide with the Malaysian Chess Festival 2008 which sees a gathering of top international players in the country.

GM Li Chao b emerged Champion for the second time in a row. The Championship started off with players from Uzbekistan and Indonesia slugging it out with GM Zhang Zong of Singapore (formerly a PRChina national) keeping the pace. He suffered a setback at Round 6 in the hand of GM Susanto Megaranto and earlier on a draw with China's GM Li Shilong but never looked back since, needing just a draw in the last round to clinch the title.

GM Zhang Zong took second place, followed by GM Dzumaev Marat, GM Susanto Megaranto in fourth place and GM Laylo Darwin in fifth. The rest of the results are as shown below

A few milestone were achieved in this Championship. Malaysia's FM Lim Yee Weng should qualify for his IM title when he broke through the 2400 rating threshold. He earlier took the Royal Selangor Open 2008 title last May.

WIM Irene Kharisma Sukandar of Indonesia too performed well. That should earn her the second norm in her bid to secure the WGM title.

IM Mas Hafizulhelmi could only about maintained his level of performance. There were missed opportunities and maybe even blunders along the way but that should be lessons learned to progress further.

The final ranking of the Championship and FIDE rating statistics are as follows.